[Stoves] [biochar] Re: Report on APBC - first two days

[Anand Karve]

Dear Crispin,
pine needles are a fire hazard even in places where pine has always
grown naturally. The rosin in the pine needles protects it from
decaying organisms. The fact that mushrooms grow under the pine trees
shows that at least the local micorrhiza species have been able to
adapt to the pines. A voluntary agency in the Himalayan region
introduced our charring kiln into their locality so that all the pine
needles could be charred and briquetted and used as domestic fuel. One
could perhaps use the same strategy in S.Africa
The microorganisms in the soil follow the Darwinian principle of
survival of the fittest. A local lateritic soil in the mountainous
area near our city is notoriously deficient in phosphorus. A
microbiology student incubated this soil with sugar and looked at the
bacteria in the soil. He found that they were phosphorus solubilizing
bacteria, because owing to their special ability to extract phosphorus
from a deficient soil, they could multiply at a higher rate than other
species.
Yours
A.D.Karve

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:35 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott
<crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear AD
>
> Based on your own work, I presume that the bacteria living in each
> environment are adapted to be able to break down whatever they find (i.e.
> high and low pH environments). So the productivity is a combination of the
> whole biome and not just the plants.
>
> I asked Bill Mollison what he thought of the extraordinarily deep pine
> needle beds at the foot of the trees planted I the Eastern mountains of
> South Africa.
>
> In the area around Nelspruit there are large forests where formerly there
> was nothing. In fact the traditional name in SiSwati for the area means 'the
> treeless place'. After 70 years of pretty intensive planting, South Africa
> was turned from a wood-importing to a self-sustaining country, and even
> exports large amounts of paper pump and sawn timber.
>
> Under these forests there are 60cm deep layers of pine needles that have
> dropped from the trees above. Apart from being a huge fire hazard, they do
> grow (at least in Swaziland which is on the escarpment) large and delicious
> mushrooms that grow entirely under the surface. They are identified by the
> humps they push up.
>
> Bill though about it and said the build-up was caused by them having
> imported the tree seeds, but not the other components of the bio-system that
> normally went with them. In fact they probably went to a lot of trouble to
> ensure there was no 'contamination' by seeds and fungus and bacteria. The
> result is that there is no local fungi and moulds and bacteria which can
> deal with the imported tree detritus. The solution is inoculation with an
> appropriate species, hopefully local, beneficial and benign.
>
> With the inclusion of char in the mix - something that occurs naturally in a
> forest through episodic fire events - it is even more complex than just the
> relationships between living organisms. It will be very interesting to see
> if anything from stove-derived char can be attributed to the unique
> characteristics that low temperature pyrolysis provides.
>
> Regards
> Crispin
>
>
> +++++++++
>
> Dear Crispin,
> If one excludes soils formed by silt carried by rivers, or the soils formed
> by windborne dust, the rest of the soils are generally formed from the rock
> underneath the soil cover. There are large tracts of land which have only
> limestone as the bedrock, and yet the fields and forests in these regions
> are quite productive. So even limestone must be having the rest of the
> minerals needed by plants.
> Yours
> A.D.Karve
>
>
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-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)